This might explain what's wrong with the world, lol
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-y ... -thoughts/
Alone with your thoughts
Re: Alone with your thoughts
That's a striking study, but I'm not sure what it actually tells us (tempting as it might be to draw conclusions about people). Like they said, there's more research to be done to explore the subject.
Re: Alone with your thoughts
That's shocking.
I strive to spend as much time as possible letting my mind wander. In fact, one of the (many) reasons I'm striving to retire is to maximizing the amount of time I have with my thoughts. My biggest source of agitation is when someone makes plans for me that will force me to be more present. I've constantly got three or four thoughts working at a given time. Ill "bookmark" one and hop to the next. I've often got things that are so exciting to think about, as soon as I remember I wanted to think about it, I get very strong feelings of joy.
And I thought this was perfectly normal in every human. To find out that so many people can't bring themselves to do so is really quite amazing (and depressing) to me. I'm going to go think about it.
I strive to spend as much time as possible letting my mind wander. In fact, one of the (many) reasons I'm striving to retire is to maximizing the amount of time I have with my thoughts. My biggest source of agitation is when someone makes plans for me that will force me to be more present. I've constantly got three or four thoughts working at a given time. Ill "bookmark" one and hop to the next. I've often got things that are so exciting to think about, as soon as I remember I wanted to think about it, I get very strong feelings of joy.
And I thought this was perfectly normal in every human. To find out that so many people can't bring themselves to do so is really quite amazing (and depressing) to me. I'm going to go think about it.
Re: Alone with your thoughts
The darker side of me says: "Most people don't like their own little worlds because there isn't much there."
I would be curious to know about the environment in which the experiments were run, though. I could see a big difference in running it in a sterile white room versus a pleasant beach somewhere. Who needs to be shocked on a beach? I am also suspicious of the journalist's motivations. There may be less here than meets the eye.
I would be curious to know about the environment in which the experiments were run, though. I could see a big difference in running it in a sterile white room versus a pleasant beach somewhere. Who needs to be shocked on a beach? I am also suspicious of the journalist's motivations. There may be less here than meets the eye.
Re: Alone with your thoughts
If you're alone with yourself it matters a lot who you are with.
Sounds rather buddhist to me. Learning to sit in quiet meditation and deal with your own monkey brain is hard work but the key to ending up happy in the end.
Sounds rather buddhist to me. Learning to sit in quiet meditation and deal with your own monkey brain is hard work but the key to ending up happy in the end.
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Devil's Advocate
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Re: Alone with your thoughts
Hell is indeed other people!
In more than one way : To have others' company thrust on to you when you don't want it is bad enough.
But looking at that statement another way : Can you think of anything nearer hell than becoming, if only for five minutes, a person who hates his own company? I can't.
This may sound conceited, and I wouldn't say this except in company such as this (where I know it will be both understood and empathised with) : I sometimes find myself looking at other people in horror : not in any way criticising them, you understand, but imagining with horror what it must be like to *be* them!
I'd read of this study too, in the papers : and I must say it didn't surprise me at all : it only reinforced my conviction that (most) other people are, indeed, what hell is.
In more than one way : To have others' company thrust on to you when you don't want it is bad enough.
But looking at that statement another way : Can you think of anything nearer hell than becoming, if only for five minutes, a person who hates his own company? I can't.
This may sound conceited, and I wouldn't say this except in company such as this (where I know it will be both understood and empathised with) : I sometimes find myself looking at other people in horror : not in any way criticising them, you understand, but imagining with horror what it must be like to *be* them!
I'd read of this study too, in the papers : and I must say it didn't surprise me at all : it only reinforced my conviction that (most) other people are, indeed, what hell is.
Re: Alone with your thoughts
Based on the article (and the linked press release) alone, there is no way to determine what the actual reasons for any of the participants "shocking" themselves were. They could each have their own and the conclusion that people can't bear to be with themselves seems quite far-fetched (the psychologists projecting their assumptions and own experience on all the test subjects?)
I normally have no problem being alone with my thoughts and I enjoy it most of the time, but probably not when on the clock for six to fifteen minutes, alone in a room with an electric device and being watched by a team of psychologists...
I normally have no problem being alone with my thoughts and I enjoy it most of the time, but probably not when on the clock for six to fifteen minutes, alone in a room with an electric device and being watched by a team of psychologists...